Abstract
This chapter surveys four torn states in the Middle East. Turkey and its Kurdish separatist movement regularly accuse each other of mobilizing organized crime to brutalize the other. Both are correct. The Turkish government mobilized gangsters (gunrunners, mercenaries, and assassins) as instruments of antiseparatist crackdown. Profiting on the side, these gangsters nevertheless remained patriotic and indisputably state controlled. Mafias also sustained Kurdish separatists in Turkey (through narcotics, arms, extortion, and money laundering), the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq and Syria (oil, extortion, theft, and gangs), and Gazan Palestinians in Israel (tunnel smuggling). In contrast, Yemen and the Houthis were both sabotaged in their efforts by a state dependent — but utterly disloyal — mafia operating qat and arms rackets.
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